


Not Beyond Repair

by imbreakingdown



Category: Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: I'm Bad At Tagging, JD's funeral, Martha and Veronica and Heather M are best friends fight me, Mild Language, One Shot, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-29 07:46:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13922595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imbreakingdown/pseuds/imbreakingdown
Summary: JD is dead. Veronica is not.She doesn't miss him, exactly, and she knows she doesn't owe anything to him, but when she gets the invitation to his funeral in the mail, she can't help it—she goes.





	Not Beyond Repair

It was sunny the day they buried him. That surprised Veronica, if only slightly. Funerals in movies always seemed to happen in the rain, or in the snow, or in the middle of the night with everybody huddled together around a grave. But JD’s funeral was midday, a few weeks after the pep rally. The sun was shining, and the air was surprisingly warm for this time of year, and the trees around the church were populated with birds singing their last arias before migrating for the winter. It might have been a perfect spot for a Saturday picnic—if not for the casket sitting in the middle of it all.

Veronica had been tempted not to go. She’d been making progress in therapy, but when she received that invitation in the mail, all the terror and heartache came rushing back. But Martha and Heather Mac and said they would go with her, so Veronica figured why not? The worst that could happen was her spiraling into a deep depression that would send her back to the mindset where she had been willing to murder three people to keep her boyfriend interested. 

What was the harm?

She was glad she had come, though, now that she was there. Aside from her, Martha, and Heather, the only mourners were Ms. Fleming and some stoners Veronica had never spoken to. JD hadn’t been the best person, but surely he deserved better than that? Surely he deserved...something? 

The preacher was rambling on about how JD died too soon, how he was an innocent soul who would be joining God in his Holy palace. It was the kind of speech JD himself would have laughed at, probably while treating Veronica to a Slushie. He was kind of a nice guy when he wasn’t being a total asshole. 

“Hey!” cried a voice, cutting the preacher off in the middle of what was probably a beautiful sentiment (Veronica had stopped listening). Big Bud Dean emerged from the side of the church, holding a beer and wearing a pair of sweatpants. 

“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “ _Cobra_ was on.” He glanced around at his son’s funeral, which was decorated nicer than one might have expected. It was held outside, under the blue sky. The churchyard was clean, black roses had been placed on the seats, and the coffin itself was polished to a near shine. Bud snarled. “How much is all this shit gonna cost me?”

The preacher seemed at a loss for words. Finally, he managed, “Please, sir, sit. We have already begun.”

“Do I look like I’m kidding?” Bud demanded.

The preacher cleared his throat. “We can discuss the matter of payment later, sir, if you don’t mind.”

Bud rolled his eyes, but grudgingly slid into the aisle, grumbling about how he did mind, goddammit. He stopped when he saw Veronica.

“Well, if it isn’t the good girl,” he said, grinning. “Sorry my son went and blasted his brains out on you.”

Veronica wasn’t sure whether to smile or frown. She settled on an expressionless nod.

“You know,” he said, leaning closer, “if you’re ever looking for a replacement—”

“No thanks,” she said.

“You sure?” he asked. His breath smelled like booze. “I taught Jason everything he knew.”

“Actually,” Heather Mac said sweetly, “Veronica is dating me. Sorry.”

Big Bud blinked. His brow furrowed. Repulsed, he made his way to a seat on the opposite side of the churchyard.

Martha clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. 

“What was that?” Veronica hissed to Heather, struggling to keep the smile off her face.

Heather shrugged, her face turning pink. “It got him to go away, didn’t it?”

The preacher cleared his throat, and the girls fell silent.

“Jason Dean was merely a child,” said the preacher, looking slightly miffed at the interruptions. “He was just seventeen. Who knows what he might have been, had tragedy not reared its ugly head?” He touched his heart, looking moved by his own words. “Now...would anyone like to make a statement?” No one spoke. 

Veronica stared at her feet. She knew she didn’t owe JD anything. She knew that, rationally, in the logical part of her brain. And yet she also knew that he had changed the foundation of who she was, what she believed in. 

She stood. “I do." 

“What are you doing?” Heather asked, concern etched across her face. 

“You don’t have to do this,” Martha whispered, peering through her glasses with worried eyes.

“Yes, I do,” Veronica said. She stood and walked to the front of the ceremony. The preacher handed her a microphone. She looked out at the faces of the mourners and realized that she had nothing to say. She really should have thought this through.

“Uh, hi,” she said into the microphone. “I’m, um, Veronica Sawyer." A decent start. "I was JD’s...friend," she continued slowly. "He was...different from most of the kids I knew. All of the kids I knew, actually. I think that’s what drew me to him, initially. He was this Baudelaire-quoting badass” —the preacher shot her a dirty look— “sorry, this Baudelaire-quoting tough guy, who I had never seen before. And he was hot, too. That, uh, probably helped. I thought he was perfect, you know? Our love was God; we had the power to fix the world together. But...he wasn’t perfect. He was damaged. And—and he said he was beyond repair. But we’re all damaged, all of us, and I don’t think any of us are too broken to be fixed. And maybe we don’t need to be fixed all the way anyway, we just need to find the people who have the parts we’re missing and hold on to them as tight as we can. I think...I think, in the end, JD realized that, sort of. I think he believed I was his missing half, and that with him gone, I could find people who would complete me the way I did him. So, I...I hope he’s with God now, hanging out, and watching movies, and getting help from whatever angel therapist they have up there in Heaven. Amen.” She ducked her head, handed the mic back to the preacher, and returned to her seat.

“Thank you, Miss Sawyer,” said the preacher. “And now, let us finish with the words from the Holy Book....”

“Great job,” whispered Heather Mac, smiling at Veronica.

“Thanks,” Veronica whispered back, as Martha grabbed her hand and squeezed it tight. And it was then, in the sunlight shining down on the funeral of the boy who had changed her forever, that Veronica knew she had found her missing parts. And she intended to hold on to them for as long as she could.


End file.
